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Subject: Re: Maybe a stupid experiment...

Author: Ricardo Gibert

Date: 14:09:25 01/03/01

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On January 03, 2001 at 16:42:15, William H Rogers wrote:

>On January 03, 2001 at 12:36:51, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>On January 03, 2001 at 09:52:06, José Carlos wrote:
>>
>>>  Lately, people have been talking here about significant results. I'm not
>>>really sure if probabilistic calculus is appropiate here, because chess games
>>>are not stocastic events.
>>>  So, I suggest an experiment to mesure the probabilistic noise:
>>>
>>>  -chose a random program and make it play itself.
>>>  -write down the result after 10 games, 50 games, 100 games...
>>>
>>>  It should tend to be an even result, and it would be possible to know how many
>>>games are needed to get a result with a certain degree of confidence.
>>>  If we try this for several programs, and the results are similar, we can draw
>>>a conclusion, in comparison with pure probabilistic calculus.
>>>
>>>  Does this idea make sense, or am I still sleeping? :)
>>>
>>>  José C.
>>
>>
>>
>>I have done this experiment with Chess Tiger with fixed openings and reversing
>>the colors for each opening, on a large number of openings.
>>
>>This experiment and the results I have got is the reason why I say all the time
>>that statistical significance is very important.
>>
>>When you see a program beating itself 10-4, you begin to understand what I mean.
>>
>>
>>    Christophe
>
>I agree with you Chris. I found that my earlier version of my program had more
>defense coding than offense coding, so black tended to play a better game.
>Kind of funny in any event.
>
>Bill

Offense and defense are 2 sides of the same coin. For humans it is not for
psychological reasons, but comps are immune to psychology. I think what you
observed was a statistical aberration or a bug at work or both.



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